Kali Obedience 🔥
And my Kali Bear showing progress in her Obedience too 😈🤘🔥
I am so glad that Zip Team Dog Training with Tuukka Nikola taught me how to prioritise relationship, communication and the dogs feelings during Obedience. Without transitioning to this way of training this dog simply would not be in business. She’s a complex character and technical training simply would not have cut it with her! But these days she is 100% fully committed to the game and showing some really nice work 😊
I’m proud of my bear ❤️
Thanks you Viktória Taraczközy for the super cool video 😊
I managed to get myself to an Obedience show finally!!!! This was little man’s first ever time seeing this environment. I of course did a Training round as my goal was to ask for a little bit of work and also ensure his first time in the ring was a great experience for him. I made sure I was light hearted and fun when working him, whilst also holding him to account when required. I am really really pleased with the little guy I have to say. He entered the ring with his nose attached to the floor in b*tching mode. But as soon as I asked him to turn on for work he did straight away. Of course he was a little distracted, and the work wasn’t as good as it can be - he needs more exposure to the environment in order to feel truly comfortable and be able to focus in it. That is totally down to me so I had better get on the case! Of course there is still a lot of work to do but I am very happy with this start.
Training round in full - errors and all - because this is how it goes in the real world 😊
Thank you to everyone at Micheldever Show. What a lovely and welcoming environment you create. It an absolute pleasure to be there and I wish we could have stayed for day 2!
By the way - I broke one of my own major rules here!!! Felt really bad afterwards when I realised! What was it….??
Obedience Day 🔥
I LOVE OBEDIENCE ❤️💪🔥
Another fab video of an Obedience Day held at my place made for me by Viktoria. This time with words instead of music 🤓😀
Some Sunday Fun… 🐎🐕🤘
Back in Alfred’s early years when his brother was a horse. We had a lot of fun doing silly stuff like this ❤️
Backwards Heelwork 🙃
#trainhardfighteasy
It can be quite challenging when your dog has learnt all the behaviours it will ever need to for your sport. The training game then becomes more about maintaining rather than teaching. It’s nice to try and keep it fresh and give the dog different challenges where you can to keep training varied and interesting.
The other day I was doing some heel work training with Del and figured we would have a little play with backwards heel work. Just messing around here, nothing too serious. But we enjoyed ourselves for sure and worked this out together ❤️😊🐕
D
Absolutely gutted. T in Protection. Not avoidance, some confusion about control. My foundation of too much control bites me in the arse once again…..
Del does me proud every time I step onto the field with her. She tries her heart out and that is all I can ask for. The beginning of the round was really great. Everything I could have hoped for. For the first time she showed the new re trained behaviour in the hide instead of reverting to foundation on the field as she has previously. But then when I asked her to out after re attack she came straight back to me. Many people have had problems with the out on the short work helper, and although I didn’t plan to give extra strength in the command maybe I did sub consciously…?? But any way we had a mis understanding and now it is all over. Absolutely gutted….but it is what it is 🤷♀️ These things only make me more determined and we will come back stronger for sure….. 💪🔥😎
Having a conversation with your dog in training….
Having a conversation with your dog in training… what does that look like?
I want my dogs to regard my communication in training. I want to have more tools at my disposal than clicking, treating and silence… The more information I can give the dog the easier it is to develop the behaviours that I want with confidence, joy and understanding. I can keep the dog confident in the behaviour without being reliant on only reward to do this for me. As my mentor Tuukka Nikola always reminds me… it is important to be able to live in the gray.. 🤔
Now this video is by no means perfect and for sure is riddled with errors. Little man has only started learning to work without the hand for guidance this very week. He is still developing understanding of the exact position I want him to be in. We are nowhere near there yet… BUT the thing I really like about it and the reason I am sharing is that you can see we are able to have a ‘conversation’ whilst taking this leap from hand to no hand. The dog regards my verbal guidance and has clear understanding of when he is correct and when he needs to try to adjust. This to me is an invaluable tool that I could not be without in my training these days 😃
Play is so so important. I am working on it and developing it all the time…. but by far the most important part is having fun together. Look at Little Man go 😎🔥💪
I am loving this snazzy little feet up down we are building. It is a little OTT and exuberant at the moment…but effort and attitude first and then we can reign it in a little 😜
My Kali Bear is really starting to love her obedience these days. I am enjoying training her so much ❤️❤️❤️
FMBB Selection Trial didn’t go our way yesterday 🤷♀️
That’s Dog Sports for you!! We gave some strong performances that I am proud of….with some glaring errors thrown into the mix too 😬
For example the Dumbell work shown here. Really pleased and proud of our work….and then….. 😬😬😬😬 over the A-frame, back over the hurdle 🤷♀️🤔…whoops!! We where both a bit confused but what a good girl coming back into a lovely present for me anyway ⭐️
It is what it is!! Sh*t happens. They’re not machines and neither are we. I have not had this particular problem before - but it clearly highlights a hole in my training.
So - 6th place and no place on the team this year for us…
Am I disappointed? ….yes
Can I see a silver lining… for sure 😏
Del and I have had a great 2023 and my main focus has most certainly been on her with the other dogs taking a bit of a back seat.
But now without the FMBB to train for I am going to give Del a few easy months and prioritise training the youngsters 💪 if I don’t get on with training them there will be no future… 💪😊🤟
Congratulations to the 5 that made the team. Fantastic Dogs and Handlers so the team we are sending to the FMBB will be a strong one for sure. Best of luck in Italy guys. Go smash it and have a great time 👊🔥😎
This little man is just too cool for school 😎🤟 We just always have so much fun together no matter what we’re doing 😍
Old retired boy got to have a little play today…just for fun 😊 It made him so happy. He has been walking around with a strut ever since ❤️🥰❤️🥰
Caroline is training for DogSportUk and Working Trials. We are working on building nice Heelwork…and it’s coming… 😊 Caroline would be the first to admit that she doesn’t love training heelwork, but would still like to create a nice picture in this excersize. We’ve been building foundations and trying to mix it up and keep it fun…and now it’s really coming. And with the breakthroughs fun and joy in the excersize is coming too 😁👊💪
Well done Caroline and Molly. I’m super proud of you guys it’s looking really nice 🔥
We all have our own excersizes that are not our favourite to train. My advice is that these are the excersizes we need to focus on the most. That doesn’t always necessarily mean training, sometimes reflecting is needed too. But if we tackle these head on then progress is made. Then we feel a sense of achievement and start to really enjoy training the excersize. For me this excersize is Tracking! I decided some time back that it had to be my No.1 focus. The first thing that happened is that I did it a lot, then I started to get breakthroughs, these made me happy and proud and I am now really enjoying my tracking training (laying the tracks not so much but that is another thing..!)
Here is Mary with her gorgeous Goldie training the Working Trials Scale jump during my workshop held at Avon Working Dog Training Society on Sunday. I really like to teach dogs to have a good technique using an IGP style A frame or ramps before transitioning them on to the real thing. Then they have a good understanding of the technique required before being faced with the ‘wall’. I start as easy as possible with the equipment I have in order to build confidence in the dog first. Then slowly in as many stages as possible increase the angle of the ramp until we are left with the scale. Mary had already done a lot of work on this so we where looking at that transitioning phase between ramp and wall. I would always take the ramp from the side the dog is sent from first. This means they can scale the wall for the first time with an easier landing on the other side. What a great job these guys did 👊🔥❤️
